


Orphans of Time

by Russ (Quasar)



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Early Work, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-04
Updated: 2011-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasar/pseuds/Russ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years of Leaping without the support of the Project, Sam wishes he could find a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orphans of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 1996,

"I'm getting old," I gasped as I set the mug down after my first, deep draught. From the mirror on the other side of the bar, my reflection looked back at me. What had once been a single white lock was now nearly a full head of gray hair, and there were networks of lines around my eyes and mouth from smiling too much.

"Well, you're not the only one," said the bartender as he wiped a rag down the length of the bar.

I sat back and looked at him. It was true. Al was getting old. His hair was grizzled and thinner, and his mustache was solid white. "How can you be getting older?" I protested.

He gave me a sidelong look. "I told you, I'm not God. And even time travelers can't live forever."

"I guess not," I admitted. "How old are you?" Then I realized there was a more important question. "How old am I? How long have I been Leaping, anyway?"

"Time is relative," Al said enigmatically. Al enjoys being enigmatic.

"C'mon, Al, give me a straight answer just once," I urged.

He shrugged. "For me, it's been about fifteen years since you first walked in here. How long it's been for you . . . well, you're the only one that knows that."

I considered the question. It seemed like I had been Leaping solo for about twice as long as I had spent on my early Leaps, when Al -- the other Al -- was there to help me out. "Ten or twelve years, I guess," I concluded finally. "Not counting time in between Leaps." I glanced up at Al. Whenever I asked him what happened in between Leaps, he just got that little secretive smile on his face. He was wearing it now. "So that means I'm fifty -- no, sixty-thr -- sixty-f . . . I don't know how old I am."

We were quiet for a while, listening to the music piped down through the sound system. Al's Place moves around through time just as easily as we Leapers do, although I can always find it when I want to. The first time I had come here the date had been the same as the day I was born. Now it appeared to be sometime in the late 1980's, judging from the punk-influenced rock that was playing on the radio. It didn't really make much difference: I always Leaped in with enough money for a few beers, no matter what the going price was. And when Al's Place was a speakeasy during Prohibition, I had Leaped in with the password ready on my lips.

I turned my head as the door swung open, admitting another Leaper. It was a woman named Stephanie. I had met her a few times here at Al's Place, but never encountered her during any of my working Leaps. I gestured a hello to her with my beer mug, and she smiled wearily and slid into a seat. It looked like she had come here to recover from a tough Leap, and she didn't want to be bothered.

When Al came back from serving a drink to Stephanie, I asked him, "Where do old Leapers retire to anyway?" I didn't really expect a serious answer.

"Wherever they want," Al responded.

I was ready to brush it off as a casual statement, not really meaning anything, but I had learned years ago that Al never said anything without meaning. I furrowed my brow, making the guy in the mirror look about ten years older, and thought about it. "Is this your retirement project?" I asked, waving my hand at the bar, the sunlight streaming through the windows, everything.

Al looked amused. "I'm not exactly a Leaper. And who said I was retired, anyway?"

I swallowed the last of my beer. It was tempting to stay here until after dark, when more Leapers would arrive. I knew most of them at least by name, and some were good friends. I had bumped into Alia several times once she finally started going solo. And I had even met Al here once -- Al Calavicci, that is, an orphan from a timeline where he never got home after the time he and I simo-leaped.

But all of us who come here are orphans, people who don't exist anymore in the world we're calmly changing around us. Not that I had ever done anything to prevent Sam Beckett from being born August 8, 1953, or to keep him from growing up and acquiring as many degrees as he liked -- but in the history I had helped to create, Sam Beckett would never start Quantum Leap. I, Sam Beckett the Leaper, had originated in another timeline, a history which I then went on to remove from the streams of time. I am a living, breathing paradox.

I had gotten used to the idea quite a while ago, and it didn't really bother me anymore. I had friends who knew what I really was -- Al, here, and the other Leapers I bumped into occasionally. I had a family, and I had done everything I could to see that they were healthy and happy, and I could look in on them every once in a while even if it wasn't a proper visit. I had my memories back at last, and I could hug to myself those images of another world that no longer existed.

And I could travel to any place at any time. I could make new friends and help other people and gradually remove more and more misery from the timestreams. As Al had said, I could go wherever I wanted.

Suddenly I felt too impatient to wait for the other Leapers to arrive. I plunked my empty mug on the bar. "Good brew," I said to Al.

"About ready to get on your way now?"

"Yep. See you around," I told him.

"Anytime," Al said with a wink.

And I Leaped.

 

I wasn't aiming myself anywhere or anywhen -- not consciously, anyway. I can do that if I want to, but I wasn't exerting any control this time. Whether I picked the moment subconsciously or Somebody Else guided me, I could never really be sure. But here I was walking down a stretch of highway on a chilly, wet autumn day. Morning, I thought, but it was hard to be sure through the overcast. I was dressed appropriately for the weather, and I had a backpack on my shoulder that was full but not too heavy. The birches, pines, and flaming maple trees lining the road suggested New England. The road itself, judging by the design and the painted lines, had probably been paved most recently in the late seventies or early eighties.

I grinned inwardly as I started walking. You could tell a man had been Leaping too long when he could identify the decade and the geographical area just by looking at a road. But the estimate fit with the style of the clothes I was wearing, too: jeans, hiking boots, a wind-breaker with Thinsulate. Rain was starting to fall, so I flipped up the collar of my jacket and tilted my hat brim to protect my face. A car appeared over the top of a hill in the direction I was headed, then disappeared into a dip again as it got closer. Behind me, I could hear another vehicle approaching, so I turned and held out my thumb.

It was an eighteen-wheeler, and in the increasing rain the driver probably couldn't see me from any distance away. I doubted that he would stop, so I moved back a few steps from the edge of the road in anticipation of the blast of spray that would follow the truck. When I saw the way he was weaving back and forth across the centerline, I backed up further. He was going too fast for safety on a two-way road like this, especially in the wet weather and poor visibility.

Even as he passed me, the driver seemed to realize he was in trouble, for I saw the front wheels lock when he hit the brakes. The truck juddered and squealed over the pavement, then jackknifed in appalling slow-motion. Its impressive momentum kept it going straight along the road even as it started to twist across both lanes.

I remembered the car coming in the other direction just a few seconds before I heard the crunch of impact. It had no noticeable effect on the truck's slow slide, but shattered glass and metal debris showered over the truck's cab and scattered under the wheels, and a new chorus of squeals was added to the groan of the wreck's progress.

I don't even know at what point I started to run. I was about to drop my backpack when I realized there might be useful supplies inside. The truck seemed to slide on forever as I chased it down the road; by the time I caught up it still hadn't come to a complete stop. I climbed the cab on the driver's side and poked my head in through the broken window. The driver was cursing and crying and wiping at his bloody forehead.

"Are you OK?" I demanded.

"It wasn't my fault!" the trucker cried. "I couldn't see them coming. I didn't see 'em at all!"

The blood on his face appeared to be from superficial cuts caused by flying glass; he hadn't actually struck his head on anything. His hands, clenched white-knuckled on the broad steering wheel, were unhurt. "Are your legs all right?" I asked. "Can you move them?"

"I'm fine," the driver said a little more clearly. "Just shook up. I didn't see 'em, I swear!"

I jumped down to the ground and hurried around the cab to see what had become of the oncoming car. Its front end was crumpled, and a network of cracks starred the windshield where the driver's head had hit it. He was slumped over the steering wheel. The passenger seat was empty.

As I circled the car to get at the driver's door, I noticed the sharp reek of gasoline. Impossible to tell at a glance where it was leaking, since rainwater was running everywhere as well. I just hoped that would be enough to dowse any flames before they could get started. I remembered sparks spilling over the road when the two vehicles hit, but nothing seemed to be burning now. The sparks and gasoline had never met up with each other.

Fortunately, the driver's window was broken here as well. I doubted it would be possible to open the door. I pushed a few shards of glass out of the way and reached in through the gap to lay a hand on the driver's neck. I was too shaken and out of breath to feel for a pulse, but I could see that the blood was still flowing at the man's temple. His neck didn't feel broken, thank God. I ran my fingers quickly down his spine; no unexpected jumps or kinks in its path. Next I had to worry about how hard he had hit his head.

As I grasped his head gently with both hands and started to ease him back from the steering wheel, a choked wail arose from the back seat. I turned in surprise to see two girls, maybe eight and ten years old, staring at the driver's bloody head in horror. The older one had a fist jammed halfway into her mouth; the younger was the one who had cried out. Both of them were at least conscious, but I couldn't see if they'd been hurt.

"Your daddy's alive," I assured them. "I'm helping him right now. You just sit tight and I'll get you out of there in a minute, okay?" I looked back down at the driver as I got him sitting back in the seat again, and nearly screamed myself.

It was Al Calavicci.

 

I pulled myself together and checked Al over professionally. He had tried to knock the windshield out with his forehead, so there was a nasty depressed skull fracture and slivers of glass embedded in his skin and hair, but the fact that he was still breathing said the damage there couldn't be too bad. The engine block had pushed the dash back, trapping his legs against the seat, but there was enough space for me to get a hand down there, and I didn't think his knees were too badly crushed. It wouldn't be easy to get him out, though.

I ripped open my backpack to see if I could use anything that was inside it. A spare shirt got ripped up to make a bandage for Al's head; a belt would make a good tourniquet, if there were any gashes on his legs that I couldn't see yet.

Someone appeared at my shoulder -- I had nearly forgotten the truck driver. "I called for help," he panted. "Are they okay?"

"The driver has a bad concussion. The kids seem all right. See if you can get them out," I said hastily.

"Oh, Gawd, kids. I nearly killed a coupla little girls!" He yanked at the back door, which had only been slightly warped by the collision. It came open with a squeal of protest, and the trucker bent over the younger of the two children, speaking encouragingly.

"Be careful!" I warned him. "There's gas everywhere." I was trying to figure out if it was possible to move the driver's seat to get Al out. The runners it moved on had probably been buckled, but if I could persuade it to recline that would help. Once the young girl was out of the way, I moved into the back seat to get more room to work. Al might just have to stay in place until heavy rescue equipment could get here, but I wanted to find an angle where I could get a look at his legs and make sure they weren't crushed.

The second girl, the older one -- Al's daughter? -- still had a fist in her mouth, but she was sobbing raggedly around it. I turned to her belatedly. "It's all right, honey," I assured her. "Your daddy's going to be okay. Are you hurt?"

She said something unintelligible around a mouthful of knuckles, from which I gathered that she was in pain. It didn't take long to figure out why; one shoulder was sickeningly distorted where it had been dislocated, probably when she slammed into the back of the passenger's seat.

When the trucker returned, after having gotten the younger sister to safety on the shoulder, I told him what I had found out. "Don't touch her right arm or shoulder," I warned him. "I'll get her seat belt off." I fumbled at the latch, untangling the belt slowly from her injured arm and the hand that was still lifted determinedly to her mouth.

It was too bad back-seat shoulder straps hadn't caught on earlier, or she might not have hit the front seat at all. But if I was going to bemoan the dangers of older car models, I should probably be complaining about the absence of an airbag; that could have saved Al a nasty headache.

"I'm gonna have to open this other door, then," the trucker said. "Hang on, baby, we'll get you out in a sec."

As the trucker hauled at the door, I turned back to Al. Sliding down between the two front seats, I could just get my head at enough of an angle to confirm that Al's legs were both intact, neither bent out of shape nor bleeding heavily. As I tried to squirm back up from the awkward position, I heard the door give a metallic shriek.

"Oh, shit," said the trucker's voice shakily. "C'mon, babe, let's get you outa there. Ups-a-daisy. Hey, mister, you better get out too. We got a fire!"

I turned my head sharply to see what I had feared worst: a spark from the stuck door had ignited some of the gasoline that was leaking everywhere, and the rain hadn't diluted it enough to keep a fire from starting. The flames weren't spreading as quickly as they might have, though, and I had no intention of abandoning Al in a burning car.

"Get the girls out of the way!" I ordered the trucker.

"Get outa there, mister, or you'll burn!" he yelled at me. The girl in his arms howled, either from fear of the fire or from pain as her shoulder was jostled.

"Just keep the girls safe!" I dove for the other side of the driver's seat, trying to work my hand between the seat and the door.

Smoke began to curl up from underneath the car, tickling my throat and stinging my eyes. A quick glance showed me that the flames on the passenger side were climbing the side of the car.

"Now would be a good time to wake up, Al," I muttered as I groped for the controls to his seat.

The seat fell back suddenly, thumping against my chest. I squirmed out from under it, got it down as far as it would go, and pulled Al back as far as I could. He got stuck at the knees. I sprawled forward across his body, trying to work his legs out of their tight spot. The crackling of the flames was rising to a dull roar.

This wasn't going to work. I sat back for a moment, gasping for air and getting only smoke. Al's knees and ankles wouldn't fit through the gap between fallen dashboard and seat, not at this angle. If I had time to find a good strong lever, or to cut away part of the seat --

I took Al by the shoulders and turned him onto his side, hoping that I had been right that there was no injury to the spine. The flames were starting to dance fairly high on this side of the car as well, and I had to keep his head near the center of the car to avoid the licking heat.

Now I could reach down again and twist his legs so that his kneecaps didn't bind on the edge of the dash. It was still tight -- I got my own feet in there and pushed at the soft edge of the seat to gain just a little more space. First his right knee came free, then after a moment of squirming the right foot (without a shoe), then I could move his left leg to the most advantageous position and free that one too.

The smoke acquired a nasty raw edge as the upholstery began to ignite. I clamped one hand over Al's mouth as choking, black clouds filled the car. But Al was free; now I just had to get him out of the car through a rising curtain of flame. I wormed my shoulders under his chest, grabbing his arms with my left hand. There was too little room to maneuver under the car's low roof, but I managed to bring my legs around. Gritting my teeth, I shoved my feet out into the fire and levered the rest of my body after it, along with Al.

I only had to get two steps away from the car to get clear of the flames, but that was painful enough. I collapsed onto the wet pavement, patting frantically at my smoldering socks and the hems of my jeans. When I checked him over a moment later, Al seemed unburned. I grabbed him under the shoulders to pull him further from the burning wreck.

The truck driver was there, waving a small fire extinguisher at the blaze. It wasn't having much effect on the gas-fed flames, but I realized that was why the fire hadn't spread further from the car. I managed to give him a weak grin as I retreated further. In the distance I could hear sirens.

"Daddy!" one of the girls screamed, throwing herself across Al's body. It was the younger daughter.

"He'll be all right," I tried to reassure her around the frog occupying my throat. "Give him room to breathe."

Now that he was out in the open, I could give him a proper examination. The head wound wasn't as nasty as it had seemed at first -- mostly just a broad area of his forehead cut up by glass, with only a small depression in the skull. The frontal lobe is the most robust portion of the brain (or the most useless, depending on who you talk to); so long as there hadn't been too much damage at the back, as the brain sloshed away from its first impact, Al should be all right.

He had a few cracked ribs, but all the long bones were intact. No severe lacerations, but his right knee was already starting to swell up from some trauma. No wonder I had had so much trouble getting it out from under the dash! Satisfied that Al's chances were good, I turned to the girl with the dislocated shoulder, just as an ambulance arrived.

I told the paramedics I was a doctor; that gave me the opportunity to listen in as they took Al's vital signs, which were surprisingly strong. "He's tough," I told them. "He'll be okay."

"Is he a friend of yours?" one of them asked me.

I didn't know how to answer that. In this reality, Albert Calavicci had never met Sam Beckett. To me, Al might seem like a long-lost brother, but when he woke up he wouldn't recognize me. And I had never seen his daughters before.

"Is he allergic to anything?" the paramedic clarified.

"Don't give him penicillin or ampicillin," I answered, as long-unused facts clicked into place. "Any of the other broad-spectrum antibiotics should be fine."

"Good, good. What about the kids?" Al was nearly ready to be packed into the ambulance.

"This one has a dislocated shoulder. The younger one said her neck hurts -- might be whiplash."

"The truck driver?"

"Minor facial lacerations, otherwise fine as far as I could tell, but you might want to look him over."

"And yourself?"

I blinked. "I'm not hurt."

"Aside from the smoke inhalation and second-degree burns, you mean?" The ambulance attendant shook his head. "Doctors are always the worst patients. I'll get you some oxygen, and something for the kid's pain so we can set her shoulder."

 

A few hours later, I was sitting in the waiting room outside of a hospital Emergency Department with Al's younger daughter on my lap. She had a neck brace on, and she'd been given some mild sedatives and a painkiller, but that didn't stop her from babbling on excitedly about everything under the sun. It was a common reaction to shock, but it warmed me to know she trusted me enough to talk so freely.

I had learned that her name was Angie and her older sister was Trudy, and they had two younger sisters as well. Their father had been bringing them home from school when they saw the truck sliding across the road toward them. Daddy had been very calm, asking if they had their seat belts on even while he tried to stop the car as quickly as he could. And then there was a horrible loud noise, and Angie had gotten jerked so hard her neck popped. Trudy hadn't been sitting straight in the seat, and she had her seat belt on loose, too, which was why she'd gotten her arm smashed. But Angie was a good girl, sitting with her seat belt on just in case. You never could tell when you might need --

"Mommy!" Angie cried suddenly, catapulting herself out of my seat and into the arms of a woman who had just entered.

I stood up with a smile. Beth Calavicci was, if anything, even more lovely than the last time I had seen her -- ten or twelve years ago from my perspective and about sixteen from hers. But the look of glowing relief on her face as she wrapped her arms around Angie would have made anyone look beautiful.

"Oh, Angie!" she cried. "I was so worried. How is your father and Trudy?"

Angie kept talking non-stop, not bothering to answer Beth's questions. "This is Sam," she cried, tugging on her mother's hand. "He saved us. There was a fire, and the car was burning, but Sam stayed inside so he could get Daddy out!"

Beth looked almost ready to faint at this news, but I smiled steadily at her. "Your husband will be fine, Mrs. Calavicci. He has some broken ribs, a sprained knee, and a fairly serious concussion, but he's already showed some signs of awareness." She was a nurse; she would know pretty well what that implied. We couldn't know anything for certain until Al woke up. "Trudy had a dislocated shoulder, and they want to keep her overnight for observation. She's asleep now, but I'm sure you can see her, and Al, if you'd like."

Beth hesitated in the midst of her relief, focusing on me with a puzzled look. "Have we met?"

I shook my head. "My name's Sam Beckett," I told her, extending my hand. "I just feel like I know all of you so well, after the past few hours. I've been sitting here with Angie, waiting for news."

A number of expressions chased each other across Beth's face -- pride in her daughter, frustration with her for babbling so much, profound gratitude. "Mr. Beckett, I don't know how I can thank you for--"

"Why don't you go check on your husband and daughter," I suggested gently. "Angie and I can wait here a little longer. We've been watching Cheers." I nodded my head at the television, which was displaying a bar that looked remarkably like the latest incarnation of Al's Place.

Beth went through the double doors and reappeared in fifteen minutes. "Trudy's asleep," she explained, gathering Angie into her arms, "and Al's still out of it. But his reflexes are good, and the doctors say he's stable. You --" she swiped a finger down the length of Angie's nose "-- get to come home now, if you promise to get lots of rest and take your pills when I tell you."

Angie rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mom. Can Sam come too?"

Beth looked up, surprised. "I'm sorry. Aren't you going somewhere? Are you waiting for your family, or . . . ?"

"No family," I said with a small smile. "I was just passing through this area. Guess I happened to be in the right place in the right time." That wasn't luck, of course; in fact, I had made a life's work out of being in the right place at the right time. But Beth couldn't know that.

Her forehead wrinkled. "The nurse told me what happened. You saved Al's life." She glanced down at my feet, which were stuffed into hospital slippers with bandages running from ankle to knee beneath my sadly butchered jeans. "And you were hurt too. You could have been killed. If there's anything we can do -- if you need anything . . . "

I didn't hesitate long; after all, I wanted to stick around and see how things went. And since I started Leaping as myself, I've become accustomed to relying on the charity of the people around me. "Well, the doctor wants to see these burns again in three days, and I don't have a place to stay near here --"

"Please, Mom, let him come home with us!" Angie begged, as if I were a puppy. "He's fun!"

Beth laughed. "Well, then. If he's fun, how could we possibly turn him away?" She stood up and looked around distractedly, that familiar look of someone coming out of a crisis and trying to figure out what to do.

"I think Angie could use some dinner," I suggested. I was pretty hungry myself, but since I had less than ten dollars in my pocket and my backpack had been burned to a cinder, I hadn't done anything about it yet. "If we go to the hospital cafeteria, you could check in on Al again before we leave."

Beth considered. "All right," she decided. "But I should call Celia first and let her know how long she'll have to take care of the girls. I have two more," she confessed to me shyly. "And Celia will want to know that everyone's going to be all right --" her voice caught, and she gave Angie another squeeze before heading for the phones.

Angie talked non-stop through dinner, telling her mother everything she had told me for the past two hours and everything I had said in return. All Beth's pleas couldn't make her concentrate on her food, until I started stealing her french fries one by one. Then she settled down and started eating, accusing me of being just like Trudy.

Afterward we went back up to the ICU to check in on Al. I lifted Angie up so she could see through the plastic window, while Beth went in and bent over the still form in the bed. She took his hand and spoke to him for a few minutes, and when she came out her eyes were shining.

"He opened his eyes!" she told us jubilantly, lifting Angie out of my arms. "And he recognized me. He's still a little foggy, but it looks like he'll be all right!"

"Of course he will," I said, winking at Angie. "Didn't I tell you your Dad is tough?"

Angie grinned enormously, but Beth gave me a puzzled glance as we left the hospital.

In the parking lot, Angie fell back a few steps. "Do we have to go in your car?" she asked plaintively.

Beth's bit her lip as she recognized the fear in her daughter's voice. "How else are we supposed to get home, honey?" she said lightly. "Have you learned how to fly and not told me?"

"No!" Angie giggled, but she still looked fearfully at the car.

"Tell you what," I suggested. "How about if I ride in the back with you and keep you safe?"

Heaven help her, that actually reassured the poor child enough to get her into the car. For the first five minutes she was very tense, pointing out every car within sight and making sure Beth was aware of it. After that, Angie fell asleep.

Beth raised her eyes to look at me in the rear-view mirror. "Peace at last," she whispered.

I smiled. "It's been a very exciting day for her."

"It could have been a lot worse, if you hadn't been there," Beth began haltingly.

"We've been through that already, Mrs. Calavicci," I said gently. "I just did what anyone would have done."

She swallowed hard. "So, Mr. Beckett --"

"Call me Sam," I said.

"Sam. Then you should call me Beth."

That would make things easier, I thought, since I could barely remember to call her 'Mrs. Calavicci' anyway.

"What do you do?"

"Oh, everything," I said.

She laughed. "For a living."

"Everything. I mean it. I've done just about everything there is to do." I sighed, feeling a powerful temptation to reveal myself. "I started out as a physicist," I conceded. "But since then I've found out I really enjoy meeting new people. So I move around a lot." That was one way of putting it.

"The nurse in Emergency said you were a doctor." Beth was watching my reaction keenly.

"Yes, I have a medical degree, too."

She was silent for a long moment. I guessed that she was finding it hard to believe me, but the nurse at the hospital -- perhaps a friend of Beth's? -- must have mentioned that I displayed some medical knowledge. "Well, isn't that a people job?" she said at last.

"Yes," I admitted. "When I got my MD, I never intended to practice regularly. It wasn't until later that I found out . . . how good it feels to help people. And by then it was a little late to start practicing. But I find plenty of uses for my medical training in ordinary life."

"I'll bet. The nurse said you set Trudy's shoulder for her."

I shrugged. "She was a little hysterical, and afraid to let the paramedics touch her. A perfectly natural reaction."

Beth shook her head. "I can't get over the feeling that I've met you somewhere before."

"It's possible. I travel a lot. We could have bumped into each other almost anywhere."

"You travel. Doing . . . what?"

"Anything. Helping out any way I can. I never stay in one place too long. There's always somebody else out there who needs help." I stared out the window into the darkness rushing by.

"Sounds lonely," Beth said after a long pause.

I gave a start. "Yes, sometimes." I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. "But I make new friends all the time."

"Well," she said firmly, "you've got yourself a whole family of new friends this time. You're more than welcome to stay with us as long as you like. And we'll see to your hospital bills, too."

"That's very generous," I murmured softly.

"You saved Al's life," she replied, as if that closed the discussion.

After half an hour of driving, Beth pulled up in front of a comfortably small house nestled among a stand of trees. Tricycles and children's toys were scattered across the lawn. I lifted Angie out of the passenger seat and carried her indoors before Beth could protest.

"This way," she said, conducting me to a small bedroom. I laid Angie on the bedspread and pulled her shoes off.

Beth put a hand on my arm. "I'll take care of her," she whispered. "Let me show you where you'll be staying."

The room I was to stay in was apparently Trudy's. The bed was only slightly too small for me, once the stuffed animals were set aside. Beth showed me the extra blankets and pillows, found a spare toothbrush for me to use, then went to tuck in Angie. I explored downstairs until I found a newspaper, and started getting myself properly oriented. Some of it I knew already; it was September, 1985, and I was in Durham, New Hampshire. The hospital Al had been taken to was in Portsmouth. If he had stayed in the military in this history, he was probably stationed either in Portsmouth or at Pease AFB, which was a few miles up the road. Beth was also in the Navy, but as a nurse she could probably get work anywhere. Or perhaps, with four children to take care of, she had taken a break from her career.

"I'm going to go get the other girls now," Beth said, sticking her head around the corner. "Make yourself comfortable. There's food in the fridge. Or if you want anything to drink, here's the keys to the liquor cabinet." She jingled a set of keys which were set out of reach of young hands.

"No, thanks." I smiled. "After the day I've had, I don't think I'll have any trouble getting to sleep."

That turned out to be true; I had already fallen asleep, fully clothed, on top of Trudy's bed by the time Beth brought the little ones home.

 

A week later, when I was playing with the two little ones, Al came home. Beth had loaned me some of his old clothes until I could buy some more for myself; I hadn't told her I had no money left. Surprisingly, Al's pants fit me quite well, aside from being an inch or two short. Beth's meals must be keeping him filled out better than I remembered from my own history. And the color scheme was much more subdued than I would have expected from Al.

Angie had gone to play at the house of one of her innumerable friends. Trudy had set a book between her teeth and climbed one-handed into the tree house, as she had every day since she got home from the hospital. Megan and Steffi and I were playing with Play-Do in the kitchen.

All of Al's daughters were a delight, but Steffi, the youngest, had come as quite a surprise to me. The moment I looked into those wise dark eyes I had recognized her. This child would grow up to be a Leaper! Or perhaps not this child. The Stephanie I had met at Al's Place was, after all, an orphan of the timestream like myself. In the history I was witnessing now, Stephanie Calavicci might never find the need to travel in time. Or perhaps she would. Regardless of her future, I got the sense that the three-year-old child could see right through me if she wanted to.

We heard a car pull up outside, and two doors slammed in succession. Beth's lighter voice floated up the drive, followed by a familiar growl that made me grin widely. I held onto the two girls as Al came through the door. His knee was braced, his head sported a strange white hat, and he leaned on a cane, but he was unmistakably Al Calavicci, whom I hadn't seen in years.

Megan and Steffi wanted to run to him at once, but I held their shoulders and whispered to them. "Wait until he's ready. Not yet . . . Look, he's going to sit down. Okay, ready, set, go! Go get him! Watch out for the cane!" I winced as Megan cannoned into Al's ribs, hoping they were securely taped.

"Oof!" Al cried. "And I thought the car wreck was bad!" Within seconds he had them both turned upside down and squealing as he tickled their stomachs.

"And here's Sam, who I told you about," Beth said over the din.

"Hi, Al." I waved.

He paused in his tickling and frowned. For a moment, I felt something pass between us. "Have we met?" he asked.

I shrugged. "In another life, maybe. Last time I saw you, though, you were pretty out of it."

"I don't remember anything about the day of the wreck," he said shortly, still trying to place me.

"That's normal," I assured him, being well acquainted myself with the effects of amnesia.

"I know." He grimaced. "It's not the first time I've landed myself in the hospital."

I saw him wince as one of the girls leaned on his knee, so I waded in to pull them away. "Okay, okay," I declared, "your Dad's been banged up enough already, he doesn't need you to make it any worse."

Both of them complained volubly, especially Steffi, who was trying to squirm out from under my arm. Beth gave me a grateful look as she brought her husband a glass of orange juice.

"Come on, let's go find Trudy and tell her Daddy's home!" I suggested.

Megan was not about to be distracted by this. "I know where Trudy is. She's in the tree house and she'll yell at us if we bug her."

Beth and Al exchanged worried glances.

"Well, then, let's go get your sculptures ready to show Mommy and Daddy!" I conducted them back to the kitchen table and their Play-Do creations.

Once the two young ones had settled down a little, I went into the backyard to talk to Trudy. The tree house, built by Al, was a lovely creation, eight feet up in the boughs of a gnarled oak tree, with sturdy but rough-looking handholds and footholds leading up the trunk.

"Trudy!" I called into the branches. "Your father's home."

"I know," came the reply. "I heard him."

"Do you want to come say hi?"

"No."

I sighed and set one hand on the trunk. "Can I come up?" I had already found out that the tree house was not strictly off-limits to males or grownups, but it was a little cramped.

There was a long pause. "If you want."

I swung up into the tree and got my head and shoulders through the small door. Trudy was lying on a pile of cushions scavenged from an old sofa, and she had a book open between her knees, but she wasn't reading. Her cheeks were smeared and her eyes rimmed with red.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing," I said gently. "You can tell me."

She looked up despairingly. "They don't care about me. Nobody got this excited when I came home!"

"Is that why your Mom baked that beautiful chocolate cake for you?"

"That was just to make me think she cared."

"Oh. But you know, she wouldn't even let your sisters have a lick of the icing until you got home. Not even when they said please."

Her mouth twitched, but the fears ran deeper than that. "Nobody was even worried about me! Everybody was worrying about Dad."

"They worried about him more because your father was hurt worse. But I saw your mom when she first got to the hospital. She wasn't going to be happy until she knew that both you and your father would be okay." I watched her closely. "Hey, nobody was worried about Angie at all."

"Angie didn't even get hurt, hardly," Trudy scoffed.

"My point exactly!" I said triumphantly.

Trudy looked away.

"Honey, look. Nobody needed to worry about Angie, but they still love her, and they're glad she wasn't hurt. Your parents love you too, and they're glad you were only hurt a little. Everyone's just been a little distracted because Al got banged up so much, and it could have been a lot worse --"

Her face crumpled and she curled into a ball facing away from me, even though it meant putting weight on her tender shoulder.

"Trudy?" I managed to cram myself all the way into the tiny cabin and put my arms around her. She clung to me tightly.

"He could have died!" she whispered. "He almost died, and I was scared for myself!"

"Shh," I murmured. "It's all right. He didn't die."

"But he could've! And I didn't even care! I just wanted to go away and not be hurt. I just wanted to not be in that car! I didn't do anything to help him!" She wailed into my shirt.

"You were hurt, Trudy. It's hard to think about anything else or anybody else when you're in pain. You did just fine."

"But I didn't even care about my Daddy!"

"If you didn't care about him, would you be crying this hard?" I asked. "Hmm? Would you be so scared about losing him if you didn't care?"

She didn't answer me, just went on crying until my shirt -- Al's shirt -- was soaked through and her sobs had turned to little hiccups.

"You ready to come down now?" I asked after an interval had passed. "You can trade stories with your Dad about how awful the hospital food was."

She sniffled. "I like the food. They had good Jello."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, it's almost time for dinner. I think your Mom's cooking is better than Jello any day." I backed out of the tree house awkwardly. "I can catch you if it's too hard to get down with one arm."

She stiffened. "I'm not a fraidy-cat."

"I didn't say you were." I had seen her hesitate a few times just before she jumped down to the ground. "Being brave isn't about never being scared. It's about being scared of something and facing up to it anyway."

"It is?" she said doubtfully.

"Yep. People who never get scared don't even have a clue what bravery is about."

"My dad isn't scared of anything."

"Yes he is, but he's very brave and he doesn't stop just because he's scared."

She looked disbelieving.

"You ask him some time, seriously, what he's scared of, and he'll tell you." I could make some pretty good guesses myself, but I wasn't supposed to know so much about Al Calavicci. "You coming down or not?"

"I'm coming. Stand back."

"You don't want a hand? Like I said, it's okay to be scared."

"I am scared, but I'm going to be brave. I'm going to face it." She scowled down at the ground, then launched herself from the lip of the tree house.

I offered her my arm as she straightened up. "Shall we?"

Trudy giggled as we made our stately progress in to dinner.

 

After dessert, when Beth was giving Megan and Steffi their baths and Trudy and Angie were watching TV, I found Al sitting on the back porch looking up at the sky. A crescent moon glimmered through the branches of the trees, her dark side just visible in the sunlight reflected from the Earth.

"The old moon in the new moon's arms," I said softly.

"Always wanted to go there," Al murmured.

"You got a lot closer than the rest of us," I said.

"Huh?"

I realized that this Al had never gone through astronaut training. The seventies must have been very different for him with a loving wife and a couple of babies to deal with. "Maybe you got there in another life," I amended hastily.

Al gave me a baffled look.

"Here." I sat down next to him. "I got you a welcome-home present." It had used up the last of my meager funds. I pulled the treasure from my shirt pocket and handed it across.

"Oh, hey!" Al exclaimed softly, rolling the cigar between his fingers. "My favorite brand, too!"

"I know."

He shot me a quick glance. "Beth told you? No, she wouldn't. She spent years trying to get me to quit these things. Finally put her foot down when Trudy was born."

"Well, if she hadn't made you quit, I probably would. Those things aren't exactly good for you. But just one won't hurt, as a celebration." I couldn't admit that I was longing to sit there with him, under the starry sky, with his scratchy voice coming out of the darkness and the smoke from one of those abominable cigars tickling my nose.

With a mother's unerring instinct for trouble, Beth stepped out on the porch just as Al lit up. "Hey!" she protested. "Isn't one lungful of toxic smoke enough for you?"

"Ah, but this is very expensive toxic smoke," Al said with a puff. "Sam got it for me."

"You're a doctor!" she protested to me.

"Really?" Al said.

"You should know better," Beth continued. "Both of you."

I shrugged. "It's a celebration. He's lucky to be alive."

"So he's going to pollute his lungs some more? Oh, all right, but I don't want this becoming a habit." She leaned over the back of his chair and pressed a kiss to his neck, under the edge of the white bandage. "What did you say to Trudy, anyway?" she asked me as she straightened. "She offered to come to the store with me. She's not scared to get in the car anymore."

I blinked. "Oh, she's scared all right. But she's tough. She can face it."

Al stared at me as Beth gave him another quick kiss and withdrew. The smoke from his cigar tickled my nose.

"Where you from, Sam? Where's your home?"

"The world is my home," I said.

"You sound like a military man."

"Hardly." I snorted. "I'm from Indiana, originally. But the place I grew up is long gone." Not only the place, but the entire history I had grown up in. "What about you?" I asked him. "You still in the Navy?"

He straightened and stared at me. "How'd you know I was in the Navy?"

I shrugged innocently. "I saw one of your uniforms, when Beth was looking out some clothes for me to borrow."

"Oh. Well, I'm in the reserves and I do some consulting and show up to glitter at the occasional function, but I'm not with the Navy full-time anymore."

I shook my head. It was hard to believe that Al had left the only home he ever knew. But in this history I guess he had more options, and more confidence in himself.

"This is my home," he said softly, as if he had read my mind. "I didn't want to drag the kids all over the world with me, so I found a nice place and decided to stay."

I leaned back and stared up at the stars. "So, you fly a lot of planes?"

As I had guessed, the question sent Al off into a stream of reminiscences and stories. I shared a few of my own, but mostly I just listened to his voice, and stared at the stars, and enjoyed being there.

After Al finished his cigar and went inside, I stayed out on the porch, despite the deepening chill. I could feel that sense of completion washing over me. Now was the right time to Leap. I had done what I came for by saving Al's life, and I had gotten my reward by sitting and talking to him for over an hour in perfect leisure. Now it was time to go.

But I didn't want to. And as I had heard often enough at Al's Place, I didn't have to keep Leaping unless I still wanted to. I stood up slowly, stretching the kinks out of my back, and headed back inside the house. Not yet, I thought. Maybe never.

 

July 1996


End file.
